Sep 1, 2013

Russia Becoming the Next Uganda?

¨Russia may be on the road to becoming the next Uganda, with anti-gay sentiment spilling over from homophobic laws into society and everyday life and legal attacks on LGBTs spreadingtonearbcountries.

Moreover, the anti-gay fervor sweeping the region seems to have another commonality with the African nation that attempted to impose the notorious "death to gays" law: News reports indicate that one of the anti-gay U.S. evangelicals who reportedly helped spark the Ugandan wave of anti-gay violence has also been active in spreading animus against sexual minorities in Russia.

In March of 2009, several American evangelicalstraveled to Uganda and presented what they called the "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexuals’ Agenda." Their talks contained assorted claims about gays and the "dangers" that gays pose to society, reported the New York Times in a Jan. 3, 2010, article.

The Ugandan group the Family Life Network, which purports to uphold "traditional family values," put the conference together. The speakers included anti-gay writer and missionary Scott Lively -- author of a book that purports to tell parents how to "gay-proof" their offspring -- and Don Schmierer, a board member of the now-defunct Exodus international, an organization dedicated to the idea that gays can be "cured" through prayer and counseling before the organization’s recent demise.

A third speaker was also in attendance: Caleb Lee Brundidge, who claims once to have been gay, but now to be heterosexual. Mr. Brundage heads seminars focused on "healing" gays (that is, attempting to turn them straight).

The views set out by the Americans ranged from highly dubious claims that gays can be "converted" to heterosexuality to wild, undefined assertions that a "gay agenda" was at work "to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity," as well as stereotype-based pronouncements that gay men prey on teenaged boys...¨ there is more:

Puerto Rican Americans marching and celebrating on 5th Avenue, New York City, during the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade Sen. Patrick Le...

REAL HERO/REAL LIFE: Bishop John Shelby Spong

“I was simply interpreting a rising consciousness,” he said. “Whether it was race or women or homosexual people, the issue was always the same: fighting against anything that dehumanizes a child of God on the basis of an external characteristic.” Bishop John Shelby Spong (click on his photo)

¨Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?¨ Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu